[PB75] No more bananas - let's get down to business

[Miguelito]

?

[Qgqqqqq]

Anything to report?

[GT]

So, let me finish this thread with my thoughts.

First of all, I'm sorry for the lack of reporting, and that I needed several extensions in my last couple weeks of playing. I don't tend to "give up" on a lost game, Gavagai could experience that in PB74. But the last couple weeks of being alive here, I had tons of   going on in real life.. but yes, I should have managed my time better.

So, I kinda stopped reporting after I retreated from a potential war with ljubljana. I settled for peace, he gave me some free resources (Ivory) to keep me pleased, and I was just peacing along.. then, Superdeath sent me an offer I couldn't refuse.

Anyway, so why did I attack naufragar you might ask?

Well, the offer that Superdeath sent me was simple: Let's share naufragar's realm.

He wanted me to attack some 2 turns before him, obviously to lure his troops towards my realm, then strike as a proper Brutus right into naufragar.

I moved my troops towards naufragar, when my scouting chariot discovered a completely undefended city in the middle of naufragar's heartland. I couldn't resist.

Started the war a bit early - one or two turns earlier than planned, but thought it wouldn't matter (I guess it didn't really..)

However, in the very same turn, after I played, Gavagai declared war on Superdeath. At the point, I wasn't sure if this was a long-planned war (knowing Gavagai from PB74 and his tactics a bit, at first I thought so..) - but I'm now fairly convinced he somehow "knew" about Superdeath going to attack naufragar a few turns later, and he must have guessed that we had this deal. So, he wanted to keep naufragar "safe" by declaring on Superdeath, without being prepared.

At this moment, I've NOT read the other stories, will do so after I send this posting only, so you can "read" my thoughts as they were when playing the game.

So, Superdeath had to shift his friendly Legions to battle the evil Egyptian hordes.. errrr, sorry for the propaganda

Instead of able to 2vs1, it was 2 wars, 1vs1 - and as we know, in such wars, catapults and first strikes are what decides the game.

For a short moment I thought I might have a tech advantage over naufragar as I would have half a dozen of crossbows ready very fast. Turns out, he had them at almost the same time. So, we just starred at each other.

Me, hoping that Roman Legions will flood Egypt fast enough to join the war still, and naufragar VERY obviously betting for ljubljana to come to his support.

ljubljana took a while, but eventually indeed came. At that moment, I was dead. ljubljana risked to get backstabbed himself (this was my hope for a while, but THAT backstab never came..) but since this didn't happened, and naufragar managed to get big bad men on horsies, I was eventually toast. Crossbows and pikes can only do so much. When it became clear I couldn't survive this 2vs1, I decided I'll go to exile. I let Superdeath know that I'll attack Gavagai soon, and that he's welcome to join in.

My target was to get an Egyptian city "deep" into new-Roman land, which couldn't touched by naufragar or ljubljana.

The war against Gavagai went pretty well, but I made a sleepy mistake when NOT taking an Egyptian city I intended to.

Superdeath took the Egyptian cities easily, this was some decent revenge at least, because in my opinion, Superdeath was hindered to come to our planned war by Gavagai intentionally. Well, I hold no grudge against Gavagai at all, and I can understand he was pissed about my DoW, but that was my "last ditch" survival plan.

I asked Superdeath for a "safe" Egyptian city against some decent haul of Gold, he must have asked the lurkers but they said "no" (understandable, don't know the rules exactly on this) - so at this moment I knew I won't survive for much longer. Kept building troops in my capital, while ljubljana took his sweet time to bring better troops into position. He must have been afraid of losing (too) much of his army and getting DoW'ed by someone else at this point I guess, which is why it took him fairly long. Well, he wasn't in a rush.

Even with my troops lost against Gavagai, I couldn't hold my capital that much longer. Maybe I would have lasted a few turns longer, but it wouldn't have made much of a difference. I tried to "Survive in Exile", but failed at that, fairly miserable.

Well, I guess Superdeath's plans ended up making myself Super Death, so there is this

Will read on the other stories tomorrow, probably I read half of the other players intentions wrong anyway, so above is just for everyone's entertainment.

I enjoyed the game, and hopefully I won't be seen as the crazy warmonger. I'm just crazy AND a warmonger, but not both in combination. Or, am I?  

[pindicator]

Crazy warmongers are the best entertainment though. Did you see (potential pb74 spoilers)

...all the crazy stuff that happened on the Small Continent in pb74? Backstabs and shifting alliance and armies wandering 40 days through the jungle?

[GT]

Just trying to explain my thoughts a bit better while I was playing vs. now having read the other players threads:

Basically, I was always afraid of ljubljana and his Zulus, and seemingly it was kinda mutual. He was clearly the most aggressive (settling) neighbor I had, but he wasn't my downfall.

My downfall was, that in my urgent search for land, Superdeath sent me an offer that said "declare war on Naufragar in 10T, and I'll declare war on him in 12T".

I committed myself to that, seeing Superdeath as an ally. Little did I know that he pretty much sold my land to everyone else, trying to bid his time..

And that it wasn't actually Gavagai that was to blame for Superdeath being unable to hit Naufragar from the other side. Superdeath never had that intention, it seems.

He threw me under the bus to keep Naufragar busy, and later I even tried to help him winning over (who seemed to me at this point to be the reason why Superdeath couldn't help me) Gavagai.

Well, guess Superdeath played a diplomacy game where he'd sell my land twice, to everyone. And I didn't even noticed his intentions.. I should have waited, and bid my time to attack, but with ljubljana having grabbed more land than our "fair" border would have been, I'd have eventually lost on land, I guess. Should I have attacked the Indian in the South instead? I don't think so.. but I was kinda forced to have a large army due to ljubljana ( Naufragar mentioned that often in his story, and understood my intentions correct.. for most of the game, I didn't intended my army to go to war with him at all, I was lured into a 2vs1 quick war/land gain ... )

Overall: I feel bad I attacked Naufragar, for various reasons. And I'm glad that Superdeath, despite his tricks, seemingly won't win the game